The bronze bust of Enrico Costa, taken in the days before from the tomb of the Sassari writer and historian at the Monumental Cemetery, was found by the State Police on Saturday, October 3. The work had been abandoned under an overpass along the SS 127bis, heading towards Sassari, in the Caniga area; officers were alerted by a woman who reported it.
The recovery brought the search for the bust to a successful conclusion, after its disappearance had sparked outrage in the city. Police went to the location indicated in the report and recovered the work, which had been removed from the burial site in the days before. Its discovery returns to the city an object connected to the memory of a prominent figure in Sassari’s cultural history.
The disappearance was reported during an inspection ahead of a walk scheduled for October 3. The bust stood on Costa’s tomb in the city’s monumental cemetery. News of its recovery therefore comes on the day the event was due to take place, after the work’s absence was noticed and made public.
The bust was found thanks to a woman who alerted law enforcement after spotting it under the overpass. Officers from the Volanti reached the location and took charge of the work. Its position along the state highway towards Sassari, in the Caniga area, made it possible to locate the object far from the tomb from which it had been taken.
The recovery now makes it possible to focus attention on the circumstances of the incident: it remains to be established who took the bust and why it was left under the overpass. These are the details that still need to be pieced together following its discovery, an important step towards shedding light on the theft. The case concerns a work dedicated to Enrico Costa, a writer and historian closely associated with the city, and placed on his tomb in the monumental cemetery.
The bust’s disappearance was reported in the earlier article about the theft, which described the report made during the inspection. With its discovery, the work has been recovered by police, and the news has once again focused attention on Costa’s memory and the value of the monument housed in Sassari’s Monumental Cemetery.